


The Cat Thief

by wyvern



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst with a Happy Ending, Cats, False Accusations, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-30
Updated: 2020-12-30
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:07:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,702
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27758893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wyvern/pseuds/wyvern
Summary: Merlin’s grumpy old cat has gone missing and he’s desperate to get him back.
Relationships: Merlin/Arthur Pendragon (Merlin)
Comments: 22
Kudos: 78
Collections: Merlin Holidays 2020





	The Cat Thief

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Kirbymatsu](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kirbymatsu/gifts).



> Dear Kirbymatsu, thank you for your great prompts! Happy holidays!
> 
> Thank you to K, who always - with great patience and encouragement - reads through and fixes my grammar and awkward phrasing for me! I really can't thank you enough. <333
> 
> Thank you to the mods, too, who always are encouraging and helpful and year after year take on the challenge of running this fest. You're the reason this fandom keeps going.

~*~

Kilgharrah is admittedly a bit of a dick, everybody says so. He loves pushing glasses off tables, biting people’s toes, and coughing up hairballs on all the carpets (instead of on the stone floor where they would be easy to clean up). Once, he jumped onto Gwaine’s shoulder and started chewing on his long hair so aggressively that Gwaine had been forced to flee out into the garden to escape him.

But still, despite all that, Kilgharrah is _Merlin’s,_ and Merlin misses him. It’s been almost six days since he saw him last, and he can’t really sleep because he’s so worried. His mum calls him daily to check in on him, but Merlin hasn’t been able to give her any updates about his stupid old cat yet, because it’s like he’s vanished into thin air.

It’s hard not to think he’s already dead. Maybe he’s been hit by a car and is lying somewhere in a ditch, injured? But Merlin’s been out in the autumn rains for almost a week now, walking the village roads over and over again, searching and calling Kilgharrah’s name. Still—nothing. Is it possible a hawk or falcon or eagle or something has got him? Merlin saw a large bird of prey circling over a neighbouring field a few days ago. Every time he sees as much as a seagull, he eyes it suspiciously and wonders if maybe it could be a suspect, too.

This miserable Saturday afternoon, it’s pouring outside and it’s starting to get dark, but Merlin’s once again out looking for Kilgharrah. He’s had some ‘Missing’ posters printed and is putting them up on every telephone pole and lamppost he goes past.

Missing!  
Old, one-eyed, white-grey cat  
Grumpy but loved  
Answers to ‘Killy’  
Call/text Merlin 07408-85 99 87  
at ANY sighting

There’s a black and white photo, too, but Kilgharrah is not particularly keen on having his photo taken so it’s a bit blurry. It was the best one Merlin had, though, so it will have to do.

He pulls his raincoat hood further over his head and quickly tries to hang another poster on a lamppost before the sticky tape gets ruined by the rain, but he knows it’s a losing battle. It doesn’t quite work as well as it should but at least it still sticks, which Merlin counts as a win. The poster paper is wet and he realises he should have put them in one of those plastic folders so they'd last at least a bit longer. It’s too much, everything, all of a sudden, and he stares at the blurry photo of Kilgharrah until it gets even blurrier from the tears welling up in his eyes.

All the fight drains out of him in that very moment, and he shoves the posters and the tape back in his backpack before slowly heading back home. He goes past small cottages where soft, yellow light bleeds out onto the street and he can hear the dampened sound of someone laughing behind the window. Shoving his hands deeper into his pockets and letting the tears run down his cheeks, he quickens his steps to get away from it all. 

When he gets home, he stops on the steps and reaches into his raincoat pocket for the key—except it’s not there.

“Fuck”, he says. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

With an impending feeling of doom, he empties his pockets and there's a lot of crap in them but none of it is the small dragon keyring his mum gave him when he first moved away from home. He takes the backpack off and rummages around in it with no luck before he empties all the contents on the wet ground and stares at it. The key’s not there.

“Fuuuuck.”

With no other option than to get all of his now wet things back in the backpack, and start backtracking from where he’s currently standing to where—hopefully—the key has fallen out of his pocket and is still lying, Merlin opens the gate again and heads out.

He kicks a small stone angrily and it bounces off into the darkness. Angry at the world in general, at himself specifically for not being more careful, and maybe a bit at Kilgharrah, too, for running off and being even more of a dick than usual, Merlin kicks another stone into oblivion when the light from a neighbouring cottage suddenly hits something small and red on the pavement up ahead.

When he picks it up he recognises it immediately: It’s his keyring, with the key still attached. Relieved, he takes care to put it in his right pocket and closes the button and double-checks it so it can’t disappear again on the short walk home. Thank the gods for that, at least. Turning around to go back home, he throws a quick glance at the illuminated window he’s standing outside and freezes.

In the window sits Kilgharrah, as regal as ever, and seemingly warm, safe, and dry.

They stare at each other for a second, Kilgharrah blinking slowly with his one eye, and Merlin can swear he’s smiling. 

How dare whoever lives there take his cat? It’s _his_ cat, however grumpy and however much Merlin whines about him to his mum and his friends.

The cottage doesn’t have a bell, so Merlin starts by knocking but when he doesn’t get an immediate response, starts pounding the door with the heel of his palm.

“Hey!” he shouts, “Open up, you’ve got my cat!”

There are rapidly approaching steps on the other side of the door, and a man roughly the same age as Merlin opens.

“Jeez, what’s wrong? Are you injured?” he says as he looks Merlin up and down, surprise and worry written all over his face.

Both upset at this man for stealing his cat and relieved at finally having found Kilgharrah, Merlin pushes past him and steps right into the small living room.

“Kilgharrah!” he says, and opens his arms for the cat to jump into, expecting him to be grateful that Merlin has finally come to save him.

But, as anyone who has ever lived with one can testify, nothing ever goes as it should when you tell a cat what to do.

Kilgharrah does jump down from his warm spot in the window, but takes the time to stretch slowly, leisurely, before avoiding Merlin’s hands and instead twirling himself around his left leg.

“I’m sorry, who...?” the man asks mildly from behind them.

“You!” Merlin twirls around so quickly that Kilgharrah hisses at him and jumps back up in the window. The man takes a step back when faced with Merlin’s anger. “You, you… You _cat thief!_ Are you one of those people who goes around stealing innocent people’s cats for no good reason?”

“What? No! I—”

“He’s _my_ cat, and here you are, trying to steal him and surely locking him indoors so he can’t even go home by himself! What did you plan to do? Were you going to sell him to some sort of animal testing facility or some—”

For the first time, Merlin notices the large removal boxes behind the sofa and interrupts himself. When he looks around, he notices the telly isn’t even connected and that everything is looking… a little unfinished.

“Well, isn’t this interesting?”

A tall, elegant-looking woman holding a tea towel is standing by the door to the kitchen, leaning comfortably against the wall and watching Merlin with a small smile playing on her lips.

Merlin is just about to answer but the man is quicker.

“Morgs, don’t be too harsh, I’m sure that…” 

He makes a gesture towards Merlin and looks at him expectantly.

“Merlin,” Merlin says, unable to keep all newly-exploded aggression out of his voice.

“Merlin? Really?” When Merlin shoots daggers at him, he quickly continues. “... that Merlin just was worried about his cat. Though obviously we didn’t know it was _his_ cat.”

The woman laughs. “Okay, Arthur, if you think this is normal, then go ahead and deal with it.”

She turns around and goes back into the kitchen. Merlin suddenly feels very conscious of how wet he is and that he’s dripping water onto what looks like a newly fitted carpet.

“I’m sorry,” he says, still upset but trying really hard to keep his voice level, “for just bursting into your home like this, but Kilgharrah is my cat, he’s been missing for days and I’ve been out looking every single day. He rarely strays far from home, so him going missing without so much as a trace isn’t really normal. Maybe you’ve seen the posters?”

He takes one dripping wet poster out of his backpack and hands it to Arthur.

Who, Merlin notices, is actually very good-looking. Too good-looking, almost. Arthur has short, golden hair, a lovely, slightly bumpy nose, and he gets a small crease between his eyes when he reads the poster, and Merlin likes the way he bites his lower lip as if he’s thinking hard about something.

“Well,” Arthur says after a minute, “your cat has been with us for about… Morgana, when did Boss show up?”

“Boss?” Merlin says at the same time Morgana answers from the kitchen: “Since Monday! He arrived just before the furniture did.”

Arthur smiles at Merlin’s confused look. “Since Monday, then. We tried turning him away, assuming he lived nearby, but he managed to somehow get inside and he hasn’t left since. And his name is…” He looks at the poster. “‘Killy’?”

At that, Kilgharrah hisses loudly. 

“Ah,” Merlin says, the embarrassment catching up with him a little. Clearly, this couple aren’t cat thieves.

Arthur chuckles, apparently delighted by Kilgharrah’s reaction. “Or maybe not?”

“Yeah, I kinda wrote ‘answers to’, but honestly it’s more of a way to get a reaction out of him. He always hisses like it’s the worst insult he’s ever heard when you call him that. His name is really Kilgharrah.”

Arthur smiles. “Ah, I see. Not the most common of pet names, but still a good one.”

Merlin discovers, then, that he quite likes it when Arthur smiles at him. He can’t help smiling back and it feels a little bit like a moment until he remembers the woman in the kitchen and his smile falters as he looks away.

“Did you call him ‘Boss’?” he asks instead.

“Yes, it was my sister’s suggestion.”

“Oh, has she met him too?”

Arthur looks at him and frowns. “Yes, obviously,” he says and gestures towards the kitchen. “She’s helping me unpack all my things.”

A knot unexpectedly unfurls itself in Merlin’s stomach, and he swallows. “Ah, is that… You look nothing alike.”

“No, well, we’re only half-siblings, but…”

Kilgharrah then decides that’s enough talking and makes a spectacular jump onto Merlin’s wet shoulders, making him yelp. Arthur immediately reaches out and grips Merlin’s upper arm to steady him, and they end up closer than before.

“Oh!” says Merlin and looks straight into Arthur’s blue eyes before quickly looking away again. “Sorry, he’s a bit of a menace, he doesn’t even like people so I’m sorry for you guys having had to take care of him. I’ll just take him with me and—”

Arthur looks surprised. “He doesn’t? He’s been a perfect house cat since he got here and seems to love sleeping with me in my bed at night and curling into the crook of my neck for warmth.”

“What?” Merlin turns his head to throw a suspicious look at Kilgharrah, who is trying to rub his head on Merlin’s wet hair in a weird and uncharacteristic show of affection. “Okay, that doesn’t…”

“Are you sure he’s yours?”

There’s a teasing tone to Arthur’s voice now and Merlin is very, very aware of Arthur’s hand still resting on his upper arm. He can feel his face get hot and knows he’s blushing. What’s the chance of this gorgeous man being interested in him? None, like everyone else he’s ever fallen in love with. _Especially_ since Merlin just burst in here and accused him of being a cat thief. 

He clears his throat awkwardly and takes a step back, but immediately regrets it when he sees the look of disappointment on Arthur’s face.

“Sorry, I—” he starts.

“I shouldn’t have assumed—” Arthur says at the same time.

“No, that’s fine, I just didn’t think—”

They both quiet, and Merlin can feel his heart beating violently in his chest. _What if…?_

He swallows hard, heart pounding so loudly surely Arthur is going to ask if he’s okay or if he’s having some sort of medical emergency? But then he throws caution to the wind, wets his lips, and steps back into Arthur’s personal space. Kilgharrah almost loses his balance on his shoulder and Merlin can feel his claws go through the coat and onto his skin. It’s fine, though, because he’s purring louder than Merlin’s ever heard him purr before.

“Is this—?” he asks. The ‘okay’ stays hanging in the air, but it seems Arthur understands what Merlin is asking. He nods, a small smile on his lips, and looks into Merlin’s eyes. Feeling almost faint with the risk he’s taking and the possible rewards, Merlin leans in further and closes his eyes just as their lips touch.

“Ohh!”

The noise makes Arthur hastily pull away, and Kilgharrah hisses softly in Merlin’s ear. Morgana’s face is full of glee as she’s watching them while drying off a newly washed pan.

Arthur lets go of Merlin’s arm and quickly closes the gap between his sister and himself, and gently ushers Morgana back into the kitchen as she’s giggling madly.

“Morgana, please,” Merlin can hear him whisper. He says something more, too, but Merlin can’t hear what. He can see Morgana roll her eyes and swat Arthur’s arm like she’s admonishing him, but he can’t tell what Arthur’s reaction is as he’s turned away from the sitting room and from Merlin. He’s got a nice bum, too, Merlin notices. _You creep,_ he admonishes himself immediately and tries to look anywhere but at said backside. _He’s being so nice and you’re objectifying him and thinking about what you might be able to do to his bum if you got your hands on it. Disgusting._

Just a few moments later, Arthur comes back, closes the kitchen door behind him, and shoots Merlin a slightly embarrassed smile but the moment is lost.

“I—” Merlin starts, “I probably should get back home. You know, with this little squatter.”

He points at Kilgharrah, still sitting comfortably on Merlin’s right shoulder. Arthur chuckles, and Merlin can’t help but be extremely attracted to the way his eyes crinkle and how relaxed he is, despite Merlin’s mad behaviour earlier. After all, Merlin burst into his home for pretty much no good reason, shouting like an insane person, drenching his carpets, and accusing him of being a cat thief. Which, now that he’s thinking about it, probably isn’t the best way to become rich and/or a criminal mastermind anyway.

Kilgharrah slowly slides down from Merlin’s shoulder and into his arms, and cradling him securely, Merlin picks up his backpack and slings it over his shoulder. 

“Thanks,” he says, “for…”

He jiggles his arms to indicate Kilgharrah, rocking the cat slightly.

“I should leave you guys to unpack, I guess. Thanks again.” 

When he steps back out through the door, it’s finally stopped raining.

“Merlin?”

Arthur stands in the doorway when Merlin turns back around. He holds up the ‘Missing’ poster.

“Can I call to check in how… Kilgharrah is doing?”

Merlin nods immediately, before his brain even can try to make him act less eager. It doesn’t seem to put Arthur off, though, as he smiles again, even softer this time.

“Maybe tomorrow?”

It would be impossible to refuse such a request even if the look on Arthur’s face had been less fond than it is. Merlin clears his throat, using the moment to calm himself down.

“Okay, sure,” he says and nods towards the poster. “You have my number.”

As Merlin turns away and starts walking back home, Kilgharrah looks up at him, blinks slowly with his one eye, and starts purring loudly.

~*~  
THE END  
~*~


End file.
